Cough or Cry

I’m not altogether in favour of the current national vaccination schedule. I have already blogged about the dubious benefits of the meningococcal vaccine and the cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil. I fail to see the benefit of vaccinating against the perfectly benign childhood disease, mumps. It is also a mystery to me why boys are immunized against german measles, which is benign apart from the damage it causes to foetuses. Measles, Haemophilus and Pneumococcus are another matter – all of these diseases can be fatal and the vaccines appear to be very effective in preventing them. I have heard numerous arguments against these vaccines but they tend to be alarmist and the science is most assuredly in favour of having them.

While I can understand people being suspicious of the newer vaccines, it baffles me why mothers do not allow their children to receive at least DWT (Diphtheria, Whooping cough and Tetanus) and polio. These vaccines are thoroughly tested and long proven to be effective. Why you would not take you child along to be vaccinated against these diseases, I don’t know, but 20% of our population does not. This is as high as a third in Maori/Pacific Island families.

It can’t be ignorance. Plunket reminds mothers continually. GPs have elaborate and extensive recall software. Emergency departments constantly remind mothers who bring in their babies. Most creches will not accept un-immunized children.

It can’t be lack of money. Vaccines on the schedule are free and the giving of vaccines is free in almost every practice. 

For a small group of mothers, it is due to a “lifestyle choice” by which they usually mean that they have swallowed some of the scaremongering of certain internet web sites. the commonest of these sites base their scare tactics on the correlation between immunisation and autism in American statistics. But correlation is not causation and the emerging statistics from third world countries show no correlation at all. It may well be that our first world lifestyle is more responsible for the rise of autism than a tiny amount of mercury in vaccines (no longer used in vaccines for many years).

Unfortunately, I suspect that the reason why the majority of non-vaccinating mothers do not vaccinate their children is that they can’t be bothered. Today’s news item about the possible epidemic of whooping cough may make a difference, but I doubt it.  If someone can’t be stuffed to protect their child anyway, no amount of words like “epidemic”, “ventilator” and “death” will get through to them.

Too many parents in New Zealand view their children as an inconvenient appendage, a possession to play with – or lose interest in , a meal ticket or a object to take their frustrations out on. Sadly, for most of these children, whooping cough is probably the least of their worries.

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